The proverb as a mitigating and politeness strategy in Akan discourse.
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Abstract
Among the Akan of Ghana, the proverb is highly valued as a mode of communication. Pragmatically, it may be used in the management of "face." Specifically, it may act as a mitigator that minimizes the offensive intent of an upcoming "difficult" utterance, it may show a speaker's humility or his acknowledgement of the addressee's sensibility by providing a common ground that does not impale the sensibility of any of the conversational participants; or it may show deference or solidarity. Structurally, it may function as a predifficult, a preclosing, or a closing.
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This article was posted with permission of the University of Nebraska Press.
Keywords
discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, West Africa, ethnolinguistics, Ghana, proverbs
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Obeng, Samuel Gyasi. "The proverb as a mitigating and politeness strategy in Akan discourse." Anthropological Linguistics 38, no. 3 (1996): 521-549.
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Anthropological Linguistics was published by the Dept. of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington and the American Indian Studies Research Institute. It is currently published by the University of Nebraska Press. Please contact the University of Nebraska Press for permission to reproduce or reuse this article.
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